“Panorama” is understood to mean a method of rendering a real or virtual scene, this method enabling the scene to be partially displayed on a screen. It is thus expected to be able to move the panorama such that the entire scene is accessible to an observer who is located at the centre of this scene; the observer varies his viewing angle but not his viewpoint.
Presently, in a common way, panoramic scenes are being represented in three dimensions, and, by way of example, mention is made of the software “Quicktime VR” which is a registered trademark of the company Apple. Regarding this subject, reference can be made to the article “Quicktime VR—An Image Based Approach to Virtual Environment Navigation”, S. E. Chen, SIG'GRAPH95.
An observer located at the centre of such a scene can rotate about himself to make his angle of view vary in the range 0° to 360°. The scene can therefore be represented by a cylinder which becomes a plane image when it is developed. This plane image is often a real image obtained by juxtaposing photographs taken successively after having made a camera rotate through an angle equivalent to the aperture angle of its lens. But this plane image can also be a virtual image. Only a part of the scene is displayed on the screen, which part corresponds to a sector of the cylinder, and the observer has direction controls to turn to the left or to the right in the scene.
While this type of representation reflects progress in relation to a plane representation, any object in the scene is always viewed by the same angle. To display several faces of this object, it is appropriate to provide a video sequence simulating an animation, for example a rotation around it, the object then appearing in various angles.
This video sequence will therefore replace the part of the panorama that appears on the screen. However, the transition from the panorama to the video sequence must take place by limiting, as far as is possible, discontinuities such as image jumps.
Thus, the aim of the present invention is a method for displaying a video sequence presenting an object which features in a panorama, limiting the discontinuity appearing between the display of the panorama and the display of this sequence.